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Monday, May 08, 2006

Please Take Away the Purple Crayons

Nearly wall-banged it, I did.Instead I just swore.Quietly.Was reading one of a clutch of romantic suspense novels I picked up on Saturday.You know - tall, dark and dangerous hero working for a semi-secret organization must save heroine from nefarious plot by kidnapping her by helicopter in the middle of a severe electrical storm on her way to her wedding to the traitorous villian who plans to use her to blackmail her father who is on the brink of discovering a breakthough in something vital to national security.Need to take a breath?No, I had no problems with the plot. Fairly standard plot.Nor with the heroine really.It was the hero.Don't know whether it was an example of semi-gelding urge that seems to afflict some writers when they try to betatize a basic alpha hero and turn him into a girly man.Maybe it was a bassackward, misapplied attempt to show the hard-case hero as sensitive and caring.Anyway, it stank.He's a trained professional who is saving her silly life and yet we are supposed to believe he feels "the guilt that stabbed him for interrupting her wedding?" to someone he knows is a traitor who plans to kill her after her usefulness is over?My eyes rolled all over the place, believe me.They arranged for her limousine to be stopped on a deserted stretch of road, "her slicing look of anger, hurt and bewilderment stabbed him....he steeled himself for her tears."Oh, dog squat.Of course, though she's wearing ninety pounds of full-length wedding satin with crinolines and such, when he heaves her over his shoulder to make a run for the chopper, he is "very aware of his hand on her pleasantly curved bottom."WTF?He must have very sensitive hands. Princess and the Pea hands at that."Her knees kicking his ribs?"Now, correct me if I am wrong - I haven't been abducted lately - but I had the impression that when a guy heaves the odd delicious bundle of feminine pulchritude over his shoulder, he holds said bundle in place with an arm behind the knees - which cannot kick.It is a convention in romance writing that the hero - even a trained, professional - must be perternaturally aware of the heroine's seductive physical charms, but jaysus, give the guy a break willya?Here they are, just made the chopper - don't forget the severe thunder, lightning and pouring rain - she's intent on rapelling out the open door without a rope as they lift off , this mission is vital for her life and the security of the entire country, and he is "trying and failing not to notice her sexy curves."Oh sure, he will.Sarcasm fails me.In the famous words of Patrick Nielsen Hayden, "This is stupid. Now I have stupid all over me."And they wonder why romance sometimes has a bad rep.

Going to vault over the "weekend" comment with a ten-foot pole.It's an exciting life.

"Crying at the funeral of a gold fish" doesn't make a guy "sensitive" - it just makes him a dork. Kids cry over goldfish. Adults, whether male OR female generally don't.I know, you were providing an exaggerated example, and it does hit the point - the use of ersatz, synthetic, unbelievable, indicators.I tend to blame it on stupid - tossed in from a list.Men can be sensitive, but ferchrissake, writers, pick appropriate times and believable examples.

Gee, I just told someone that I prefer heros who appear to be alphas, but who were really just betas in alpha clothing. I never knew I was writing about castrati ;).

I don't think the problem was the writer's urge to create a sensitive hero, but rather the writer's lack of ability.

By the way, men are aware of pleasantly curved bottoms, and how close their hands are - to said bottoms, through car doors, across crowded rooms, around corners, and behind wedding vows. That dress wouldn't hinder us. I'll bet most men could describe her underwear with some accuracy after that same ordeal.

One other note; for men, a hand on the back of her knees becomes a hand on her behind as it is transferred into memory. I'm not defending the writer - stupid is as stupid does - but pleasantly curved bottoms make us all stupid sometimes.

Oh dear, I have so annoyed Mark.The problem is not beta males in alpha clothing.It's the writer assuming that beta males think like stupid women.Nevertheless, I do have considerable trouble believing that men are so obsessed with sex that they are excessively keyed to women's behinds during a 3 minute snatch in the middle of a severe tunderstorm.

Claiming that they are, Dennie, makes us all prudes and liars as I recall.I just submit that in the scenario proposed by the writer, the last thing on hero's horny mind is the shape of her ass; and while the sexual attraction should be introduced as early as possible according to convention, the writer really crowded the beat and believability in this instance.It's a false and female fantasy that has little basis in fact. Guy's going to concentrate on getting the job done. At that point she's just an object, a package to be gotten from A to B, not a person.

Really annoyed me, Bonnie, especially since I had just finished a similar book where the writer had all the ducks in a row regarding motivations and actions by a nice sensitive but manly hero.He didn't notice her nice ass or her soft mounds in her lacy bra until he had her bullet wound cleaned and bandaged, the baby changed and fed, and he had time to view her as something other than an inconvenience and a complication.

Men, do, as a general rule, have one track minds. And it's not always on sex. There's also work. And while they're working, unless they get seriously distracted by something, they're not thinking about sex.

They don't have as much practice multi-tasking their thinking as women do. Says Sela as she types, holds the mouse between her teeth (don't ask), folds clothes with her feet, drinks her coffee through a straw, and keeps an eye on the clock to recall when to pick up ds.

Since her age is not just propped up but part of what she is, including her widowhood, experience in life etc. and that is what hooks John, you should be fine. If not, don't ship it as Romance but Commercial Fiction.

I have some troubles about the not-HEA between Ciaran and Julia as well, even though hist fic, I'm afraid an editor might think readers want them to get together in the end but I don't see any way it would work in the historical context.